


Monster Like Me

by BlakeBroflovski



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Kidnapping, M/M, Masturbation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Side Ship: Sheith, Slow Burn, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:17:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlakeBroflovski/pseuds/BlakeBroflovski
Summary: What began as a kidnapping turns into one last journey to find "home".





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jenforthewin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenforthewin/gifts).



> Anko wanted me to have the summary be "Keitor? In MY Sheith? It's more likely than you think!" and I thought that was hilarious and accurate enough to warrant a mention, so even though it didn't make it past the chopping block, all of you still get to know about it. She also sent an entire script for a theatrical trailer, but I didn't feel there was enough room to paste it here, so you'll have to use your imaginations on that one.

Keith's head lolled back against a hard surface, his mind swimming.

He felt as though he'd been slowly struggling to wake for years, though he didn't know how long it had been in truth, nor did he remember losing consciousness.  His head pounded.  Breathing was a laborious, manual task that tired him out more than it invigorated him.  Echoes of voices drifted through his mind, like sounds carried through fog, a haze that parted long enough to show strange images before it swirled back in upon itself.  Shiro yelling his name over the comm link.  The Black Lion's display flashing red, a warning alert screeching.  A blinding purple light.  A cloying, nauseating chemical smell.  Coran's voice, garbled by a static crackle, the words incomprehensible.

A different voice — clearer, outside the flow of disjointed memory — cut through the fog.

"Sir, he's waking."

"Ahh, excellent."

The second voice, unlike the first, was male, and accompanied by footsteps — a slow stroll that began behind Keith, trailed a wide path around him, and moved before him, where it stopped.  A semiconscious impulse had Keith's head following the sound as it passed, tipping to the side and rolling forward until, where it succumbed to gravity, it flopped down, touching his chin to his chest.  He tried to lift his head again but it felt so _heavy_ , as though some intangible force were holding it down.

His hair hung in his eyes and his temples _roared_ with ache, but when he went to lift a hand to his face, he discovered his hands were bound.

Panic shot through him, sudden and white hot, snapping him alert and pulling his eyes open.  He stared down at his elbows where they bent behind his back, watching them strain as he pulled against the cuffs that joined his wrists behind him.  An attempt to shift a foot that was just as fruitless as his attempts to free his hands told him his ankles were bound, too — to the legs of the cold metal chair he sat on.

Then he saw the other chair, and the other set of feet.

As best he could through his hair and the dry-eyed ache, Keith took in the figure seated across from him, near enough that the figure could use Keith's lap as an ottoman if he wished.  He didn't; he kept one leg crossed over the other at the knees, the suspended foot waving idly as he appraised Keith in turn.  He was lithe and slender, smaller than any Galra that Keith had encountered, and if not for the purple coloration of his face, Keith would have never known him to be Galra at all.  The billowing mane of silver hair that fell over his shoulders in loose curls further served to belie a pure Galra heritage — Keith knew of only one race with distinctive long white hair.

It was the face, though, that truly gave him away — the sharp angles of the chin, the narrow upturned nose, the modest points to the ears — and more than that, the eyes, a singularly brilliant piercing blue that was absolutely and undoubtedly Altean.

A man with a mix of Galra and Altean heritage could only be one person.

Lotor's voice was every bit as melodious as it had been the first time he had sent a transmission to the forces of Voltron.

"Hello, Keith.  How are you feeling?  I understand there can be some… side effects."

Side effects?  Keith swallowed dryly, noticing a chemical burn on the back of his throat.  Fuck.  He'd been gassed somehow, and judging by the smell he recalled, probably with some type of ether.  No wonder breathing was so fucking difficult.  The ache in his temples was beginning to produce a dull ringing in his ears.  "How do you know my name?"

The prince smiled widely enough to show the tips of his tiny canines.  "I know all sorts of things about you, Keith.  I've been looking forward to this meeting for some time."

"How flattering," Keith said blandly.  He glanced down at himself, at his bound extremities and sweat-stained bodysuit and scuffed armor.  "Sorry I didn't dress for the occasion."

Lotor blinked, a look of vague surprise settling over him.  "Oh," he said mildly, addressing someone over Keith's shoulder, out of his sight.  "A funny one, he is."

"Yeah, I'm a riot."

"No matter, Keith.  I assure you there is no dress code for this party."

Keith glanced to his right, at the figure stationed over Lotor's shoulder in a mirror to the figure apparently stationed behind Keith, and with a chill, recognized her.  She'd lost the imperial fleet insignia on her arm since their initial encounter in the Weblum, but she wore the same uniform still, its colors and patterns so similar to Lotor's own.  "Could've fooled me."

She stared back at him, impassive and unreadable.

Lotor's smile had returned.  "I was hoping we could have a little chat, you and I."

"A chat."  Keith allowed his gaze to wander, examining the room, which seemed to be a battle bridge.  Behind the temporary chair the prince now occupied, the command seat was mounted on a raised dais, flanked by wide staircases that arched back to closed doorways.  Another of the guerrilla invaders from the Ulippa base, the one with the prehensile tail, stood nearly concealed in a darkened corner beneath one staircase.  Perched on her shoulder was a cat sporting the same colors featured on the group's armor.  Keith nodded slowly to himself.  "We could do that.  Or we could gargle broken glass."

Lotor raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

"We could take a trip to a proctologist.  Or write a rock opera about my mommy-daddy abandonment issues.  We could compile a list of our favorite viruses and a detailed breakdown of their effects on living things.  Or, you could take all those suggestions and shove 'em up your royal ass.  Golly, I don't know, this all sounds so fun.  Why don't you pick?"

The figure behind Keith moved, stepping into his periphery.  It was the huge soldier, the one who looked like she could bench press a truck in her sleep.  She let out a guttural growl, but made no move to interfere without Lotor's permission.

Keith would have expected Lotor's grin to have evaporated in light of the profanity, but it had not.  "Funny _and_ feisty," he observed, his suspended foot brushing Keith's shin.  "My favorite."

"Happy to entertain."

The prince let his foot slide up and down Keith's leg, chasing the accidental contact rather than running from it.  Keith wished he could pull away.  "Since you've so graciously allowed me the choice," Lotor said, "I'm going to choose having that little chat after all, if you don't mind."

"Goodie."  The pounding in his head was seeping into his jaw.  "Well, I'm not feeling very chatty at the moment, so you better make it quick."

"As you wish."

"Then I wish you'd jump in a meat grinder."

Lotor didn't seem to hear him.  He addressed the huge soldier at Keith's side.  "Zethrid, would you release those ghastly restraints for our guest?  This is hardly a seemly ambiance for civilized conversation."

"Wouldn't do that if I were you, pretty-boy."

Lotor did hear this, and held up a hand to stop Zethrid mid-motion.  He uncrossed his legs and sat straighter, fixing Keith with the look of amused curiosity a parent would give an unruly child making empty demands.  "Why not?" he said, his tone genuine, which somehow infuriated Keith more than mockery would have.  "What would you propose to do, unarmed, against the four of us?"

The warning that his knife had been taken from him made him notice where it had gone — sheathed snugly at the hip of the soldier from the Weblum.  It gave him pause, but perhaps they hadn't known how to take his bayard, too.  Better not count on it still being there; and, if it was, better not betray that hidden advantage.  "First," he said flatly, "I'm gonna kick you in the throat."

Lotor raised his eyebrows, his expression now bordering on delight.

"Then I'm gonna duck and roll, so that the tail whip from that one—" he nodded toward the faceless one in the corner— "ends up hitting this one—" he jerked his head toward Zethrid beside him— "and I'm gonna grab her tail and throw her into She-Hulk here for good measure.  Then I'm gonna sweep kick the legs out from under _you_ , Kristen Stewart," he said, addressing the lone warrior from the Weblum.  Her stoic expression had not changed in the slightest.  "And I'll take my knife back while I'm at it.  And then I'm gonna escape up those stairs and through that door at the top."

"It would prove a most thrilling adventure," Lotor said, unfazed, "but you don't know where that door leads.  Where would you go from there?"

Keith shrugged.  "Sometimes the best adventures are the ones that unfold along the way."

"I'm very inclined to agree," Lotor said serenely.  "Why don't we see how yours plays out, then?"

Keith blinked at him.  He couldn't be serious.

He nodded at the soldier to Keith's side.  "Go on, Zethrid."

Zethrid did not move.  "Sir…?"

"Release him."

"But—"

" _I said_ , release him."

He stared at Lotor as haltingly, unwillingly, Zethrid reached behind Keith with some short rodlike instrument, but the prince's face showed nothing but smug contentment.  Did he really expect Keith to make a break for it, now that he'd prepared them all for what he would do?  Zethrid's instrument touched the cuffs, and he felt the instant relief of tension as they snapped apart.  He brought his hands in front of him, making to massage his wrists, but otherwise remained quite still, waiting for Zethrid to apply the instrument to each of his ankles in turn.

Lotor's eyes flicked down to Zethrid's hands at work, then back up to Keith, an anticipatory light shining in them.  If Keith moved, he'd have four soldiers on him at once.  If he didn't, would he ever get another chance?

With the click of the second ankle cuff falling loose, he struck.

Both elbows swung down with all his force onto the back of Zethrid's neck, and she hit the floor with a grunt.  Not incapacitated, but down for enough time to count.

He brought his gaze up to Lotor, and in a split second in which time seemed to pause, his stomach dropped at the look of exalted satisfaction on the prince's face.  There was no surprise, no alarm; just a fearless confidence that told Keith he'd done exactly as the prince wanted.

Too late to stop now, he knew, and vaulted over Zethrid to swing a flying front roundhouse at the prince's face.

Lotor ducked forward with such smooth synchronization Keith almost suspected he had set up the room this way on purpose, but the thought was gone before he could pay it more mind, because no sooner had he landed behind the prince's chair than the faceless one had pounced over the dais at him.  He didn't grab her by the tail as promised, but by the arm, and he did not throw her into Zethrid as promised, but used her path of momentum to fling her into the one from the Weblum.  They landed in a pile against a display console, and he snatched his blade from the latter's hip and dashed past them up the stairs to the door, incredulous that no one had been able to grab him, hand outstretched toward the control panel—

Something hit him across the chest hard enough to knock the air out of him and throw him backward off his feet, his blade soaring from his hand.  He nearly tumbled down the stairs but caught himself, looking wildly to see what he'd run into.  His racing mind supplied the thought _particle barrier_ but was proved wrong when another soldier — of course, there had been _four_ at the Ulippa base, how could he have been so stupid? — materialized in front of him from thin air, one leg raised to Keith's chest height.  She was the very one he had fought at the base, the nimble martial artist with the vestigial patagia barely visible under her folded arms.  She replaced her foot on the ground, shifted her weight to one hip, and gave a little hum of satisfaction as a large, unyielding hand gripped him by the back of his armor collar and dragged him bodily down the stairs.

Zethrid all but threw him back into the chair, nearly knocking his wind out again.  His hair was now more disheveled than ever, but he didn't care to fix it.  Lotor watched him regain his breathing in silence, scarcely a hair out of place for all Keith's effort, as Zethrid bound his wrists again — in front of him this time — but did not reactivate the ankle cuffs.

"Well," Lotor said.  "That _was_ fun."  His smile had faded to a ghost on his lips, but still gleamed in his brilliant blue eyes.

Keith longed to spit at them.  "I hate you."

Lotor's beautiful face fell into a childlike pout.  "You do me such injury, Keith."

"I _hate_ you, _so_ fucking much.  You piece of shit."

"That's not very sportsmanly."

"Fuck you."

A corner of Lotor's mouth quirked in amusement.  "I trust this is sufficient restraint for now," he said, nodding at Zethrid to back off.  "I don't think you're going to try that again."

It might have been a question, but Keith didn't answer.  His headache screamed behind his eyes and his throat seared from the abuse of labored breath.  He fought to not let his physical stress show as he watched the faceless soldier and the one from the Weblum return to their posts.  The cat streaked past Keith's feet back toward its owner, hissing at him as it went.  The soldier from the Weblum calmly retrieved Keith's knife from the stairs and returned it to her hip.  When she looked up to see Keith watching her, she simply returned his gaze dispassionately.

"So," Lotor said pointedly, crossing his legs at the knee once more.  "Now you've met Ezor.  She's wonderfully tricky with that camouflage, isn't she?"

Keith watched Ezor all but bounce down the stairs to stand behind the prince, her steps springy, as though she were somehow less affected by the ship's artificial gravity than the others.  "Yeah," Keith said, sullen in the face of her blinding smile.  "Awesome."

"As for the rest of my generals… to my right is Narti," he went on, indicating the faceless one with the tail, now silently consoling the cat in her arms.  Keith couldn't care less.  "And of course you've met Zethrid.  And… if I'm not mistaken by these eloquent stares you keep exchanging, you and Acxa are already familiar?"

Lotor glanced back over his shoulder toward the one with Keith's knife.  She took a moment to answer, realizing the prince had been speaking to her rather than Keith, and said curtly, "We've met."  Keith realized her voice had been the one to wake him a few minutes ago.  "He's the one I told you about from the Weblum, sir.  I didn't realize he was a paladin at the time."

"Well, then you're already firm friends," Lotor said, looking back to Keith as though he'd found where Keith had hidden his birthday presents.

"That's a generous way to call it," Keith muttered.

"Oh?"  Lotor laid one arm across his middle, propped the opposite elbow on it, and touched a hand to his chin.  He regarded Keith with amusement.  "What would you call it, then?"

He looked to Acxa, but she just stared at him, apparently not about to speak up when he'd been the one addressed.  "I'd call it a… temporary, mutually beneficial alliance."

Lotor stroked his own chin leisurely.  "There's a rather long turn of phrase."

Keith shrugged.  "We were trapped, we used our combined skills to get ourselves out, we went our separate ways.  Not much to it."

"Hmm."  Lotor's foot resumed brushing Keith's leg as he considered this, but Keith's ankles weren't bound anymore, and he knocked Lotor's foot away with a knee.  Lotor didn't pursue it, but he smiled, as if pleased by Keith's motions of discomfort, and it pissed him off.

"You wanna tell me why I'm here, or you just wanna dick me around some more?"

Lotor's smile broadened.  "As fun as 'dicking you around' may be, I would like to get down to business, if you're amenable."  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  He could touch Keith by hand now if he reached out, but he kept them steepled together.  "In putting my plans together, I've hit a bit of a snag, and I've since been hoping that you could help me with a little something."

"Oh, just that?" Keith said.  "Then why all the—" he shook his bound wrists in front of Lotor's face, but the prince only blinked placidly— "pomp and circumstance?  Why bother bringing me super willingly into your extremely cozy ship?  Why not just ask like a normal person?"

Ezor gave a lilting giggle; Lotor merely smiled.  "I am not so deluded as to believe that _you_ would help _me_ for any amount of love or money, unless forced to."

"You're probably right."

"I know I'm right.  And unfortunately — as I _do_ require your help — force, it will have to be.  I apologize in advance for the unscrupulous behavior to follow."

"Sounds totally rational."

"I'm relieved to find you so accommodating," Lotor said, either unaware of Keith's sarcasm or, more likely, simply choosing to ignore it and pry whatever value he could from whatever Keith gave him.  Keith grit his teeth, despite the headache.  He would have to resolve to give him less.

"So what do you want?"

"Oh, there's no need to rush into all that," Lotor said, raising one hand.  Keith was too late to realize it was coming for his face until it was already there, carding into his hair and sweeping it back, out of his eyes, which Lotor then gazed into with such intensity it made Keith's stomach turn.  The cool material of his glove was a balm to Keith's pounding headache, but the shifting of his hair was not.

"There," Lotor said softly, almost to himself.  "That's better.  Now we can see each other properly."

"Stop touching me."

Lotor paused for a moment, his hand quite still in Keith's hair, and for that moment, Keith was sure he wasn't going to yield.  Then he let his fingers complete their trail and come free, raising his hands in a gesture of truce as he settled back into his seat.  A good portion of Keith's hair immediately fell right back in his eyes, and Lotor gave a chuckle through his nose, his expression turning into a fond exasperation far too intimate for someone who had literally never met him before.  At least he kept his fucking hands to himself.

"We will have to do something about that," he mused with a little nod toward Keith's hair.

"I said, what do you want?"

Lotor leaned back, kicking his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle.  It was all Keith could see before his feet were obscured under Keith's chair.  "To the chase, then: I want you to convince Voltron to ally with me."

The snort that was ripped from Keith's burned throat felt like it might've torn something on the way out, and his laughter was made all the uglier for it, although it, like his insults, did nothing to dispel Lotor's smile.  Anger spurred Keith on, and he laughed harder, only stopping when his head throbbed too badly to let it go on.

"You're crazy."

"I'm quite sure there are some who will say so," Lotor said with the calm and composure of someone who had long since accepted this fact.  "Be that as it may, however, I do require the assistance of Voltron.  Not for very long, I think, but for long enough to accomplish an admittedly rather lofty goal, after which the paladins may go on their merry way unmolested."

"What goal?"

"Now, now.  One thing at a time, all things in succession."

"Well, how do you expect me to bring you Voltron if you don't tell me what it's for?"

"I will tell you what it's for, but not right now.  More to the point, I don't expect you to bring it to me at all, at present."

"Okay, you're not making any sense, but at least we're on the same page."

"I simply mean that I suspect even if I do tell you what I intend to use it for, you do not yet trust me well enough to follow through in providing it.  And trust, as you know, takes time to develop, which is why you are here."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that I would like to form a… 'temporary, mutually beneficial alliance' with you, Keith."

"And you plan on doing that, how?"

Lotor glanced around as if noticing where he sat for the first time.  "How do you like it here?"

Keith followed suit, pretending to give great assessment to the construction of the bridge.  The only other exit he could see, apart from the one he'd failed to reach, was the matching one at the top of the other staircase guarded by Narti, and there was no way to tell whether either of those doors might lead to someplace near an escape or deeper into the belly of the ship.  "Looks pretty dated," he said.  "Lacking in décor.  Bad color coordination.  Terrible fēngshuǐ.  You could stand to crack open an issue or two of _Good Housekeeping._ "

Lotor regarded him with an affectionate smile.  "I'm sorry to hear that."  He retracted his outstretched legs and rose to his feet as he went on, "I do hope your opinion is open to improvement, as you'll be enjoying an extended stay here."

Keith snorted again, not quite so painfully loudly this time.  "I don't think so."

"Oh, but I do," Lotor said, smoothing an errant wrinkle from his action-kilt and beginning to turn toward the door Keith had tried to reach.  "You must be exhausted.  Shall I show you to your quarters?"

Keith stayed seated, staring gobsmacked at him.  "You really think I'll be here long enough to use quarters?"

"Yes, I do," Lotor said evenly, squaring his shoulders and facing Keith directly.  "You see, I plan on gaining your trust by giving you ample time to build it, which warrants a visit of some length.  As you are, at this stage in the game, understandably unwilling to participate in such a visit, I have had to make arrangements to ensure you will not be able to cut our time short.  Not only have I sealed your lion away in a chamber where you will be unable to reach it, as well as reverse-engineered the scanning protocols of your lion to deflect any tracking devices trying to reach it, but in addition, I understand the telepathic nature of the quintessence-based bond with a paladin and their lion, and have constructed a field around this ship, rather like a particle barrier, to prevent psychic energy from escaping or entering.  Should you attempt to reach out to the Red Lion, you will find your efforts in vain, and should you attempt to cause the Black Lion within this ship to reach out to Shiro, you will encounter the same futility."

Keith's stomach rolled.  "That's not possible.  You can't just block a paladin's bond with their lion, it's something stronger than science or physics can contain."

"Of course I can," Lotor said; "I've done it.  The result will be likewise should Shiro attempt to reach out to the Black Lion, but as it has rejected him, I do not believe that to be a scenario worth concern in the first place."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

"No, you're bluffing.  Why would you blab about it if it's so important?"

Lotor blinked at him.  "Frankly, because I believe it will do you little good.  I know you do not possess enough technological expertise to access these systems, let alone disable them.  Telling you a wall exists does not give you a battering ram.  In fact, it might put you more at ease to know the limits constraining you without forming unrealistic expectations and encountering frustration when they are dashed.  So yes, I think you'll find you and your compatriots will have quite the difficult time indeed trying to reach one another, and without access to any sort of flight craft, you have no method of leaving without assistance."  Lotor smiled down at him.  "Now… shall I show you to your quarters?"

Another idea had hatched in Keith's brain, but he didn't dare look toward Acxa and give it away.  He raked his eyes up and down Lotor's standing figure.  He was taller than he'd looked sitting down — close to Shiro's height, if not over.  This might be difficult.  "Okay," he said, "but if the room is the size of a postage stamp, I'm sleeping in the hall."

Amusement colored Lotor's smile once more.  "I think you'll be more than satisfied.  Release him," he said, nodding to Zethrid, but she didn't move.

"After what he did last time?"

"I'm not worried," Lotor said, but his eyes were on Keith as he said this, and there was something gleaming in them that told Keith he had already anticipated and prepared for anything Keith might try, something beyond words that chilled Keith to the marrow.

It made him want to claw those eyes out.

He rose slowly, unthreateningly, to his feet, and Zethrid reached in to deactivate his cuffs with the caution of one pulling a tooth from a sleeping bear's mouth.  When the rod touched them, they snapped apart and fell to the floor with a thud, and Keith made no move toward her or the prince or anyone.  He kept his hands in front of himself and silently waited for Lotor to turn and lead him toward the exit.

It wasn't until they passed Acxa that he struck this time.

Like lightning, he snatched his blade from her hip for a second time and shifted his weight down to use his shoulder as a ram, slamming into her ribcage just under the armor and throwing her off balance.  The other three generals moved toward him as one, but before any of them could touch him, his hand whipped out and grabbed a fistful of the prince's hair.  Lotor gave a shout of pain and surprise as Keith tugged him backward and brought his fist flush with the roots of Lotor's hair, gripping the prince's head to his chest and laying the blade on his throat.

He could sense Zethrid's hulking presence coming up behind him, but at Ezor's cry of "Don't!", she stopped cold.

Keith rotated slowly on the spot so as to get them all in his sights, keeping a vice hold on the prince, who had gone quite still, save for tipping his chin up to keep from being nicked.  Vaguely, Keith wondered what color his blood would be.  Acxa had regained her footing and watched him with a dangerous stare, Ezor hovered on the bottom stair of the dais, and Narti had shifted into an attack crouch, tail lashing like a great whip, but none of them attempted to approach him.

"I'm leaving," Keith said, backing up the staircase toward the door, and Lotor moved along, his body arched strangely at the angle Keith was pulling him into but offering no resistance.  "If any of you tries to stop me, I'll cut his throat."

Lotor made a sound that Keith at first mistook for a quiet sob, until he realized it was laughter.  "Come now, Keith," he said, his tone playful but condescending, as though Keith had just made a very interesting move at chess but still played an amateur game against the world champion.  Keith's blood boiled, his pulse thundering down every limb.  "If you kill me, there will be nothing left for you to shield yourself with.  Then you'll have four generals shoot you at once, and do you think you're going to survive such a thing?"

At that, he noticed all of the generals were in fact moving — their gun hands inching almost imperceptibly toward their holstered weapons.  With the prince's words, though, they felt at liberty to take them openly.  Zethrid was the first to take aim at Keith's head, the others following suit, but Lotor held up a hand to stop them there.

Keith eyed the four guns pointed at his face.  "If they kill me, they can't get an alliance with Voltron."

"If you kill their commanding officer, they'll have no further reason to want one, and you'll have made yourself disposable," Lotor said smoothly.

Shit.  Keith searched his mind.  "If I'm so disposable and I'm being such a threat, why don't they just kill me now?"

"Because I have faith you'll come to your senses, and they have faith in me," Lotor said, even as Keith dragged him up the next of the stairs.  The generals moved closer, maintaining the gap between them.  "We've reached a bit of an impasse, and it all hinges on you, Keith.  I will not allow you to leave, nor will I assist you in doing so, but my officers cannot allow you to kill me, and I assume you don't want to die.  As it stands, all things considered, you are the one with the most to lose should you make good on your posturing.  So let's play this out logically: If you kill me, you die as well, and your friends with Voltron will still have to contend with my father's empire, one officer short.  If you attempt to kill me and fail, my generals will likely still kill you for the trouble, and remiss as I would be to lose you, if I am forced to choose another paladin in your place, I will do what I must.  If you stay here, however, you live, you eventually adjust to your new accommodations, and we all get to carry on happily.  Now, why don't we be reasonable about this?"

Keith dragged Lotor up the next stair, the prince's heel slipping on the last for a moment, watching the four generals as he went.  Again, they followed, keeping him from expanding the distance.  He didn't know how Narti would aim a gun without eyes, but since her face had been following the action all along, he didn't doubt that she somehow could.  Acxa shifted her plasma pistol comfortably in her palm, her face almost bored.

His heart fluttered against his armor, but his voice came out steady.  "I'm leaving."

"No, you're not," Lotor said coolly, infuriatingly calm for a hostage with a knife to his throat.  "Not until I say so.  You will remain here on my ship, or you will die.  There is no third option.  The choice is yours.  I advise you to choose quickly — Zethrid is not known for her patience."

Zethrid let out another feral growl, and for the first time, Keith felt he had hit a dead end.  A fine thread of panic drew taut in his chest, setting his skin to shaking.  His hand holding the knife began to tremble, and Lotor tipped his chin a little higher.  He was one footfall away from the landing.  If he took Lotor with him, the generals would follow, and one of them would surely shoot him eventually.  He could let Lotor go, make a break for it, but how far would he get?  Would they shoot him anyway?  And if Lotor was to be believed, would he even be able to reach his lion at all?

His gaze flicked down to the blade in his hand.  _Knowledge or death._

Death didn't seem like a valiant option, one that would do a great deal of good, when there was still knowledge to be gained.  Perhaps in lingering, he could uncover the depths of what Lotor was up to, and when he escaped, he could relay all he'd learned to his friends.  How exactly he would escape, though, would be the first puzzle to work out.  He would find a way, of course — he always did — but Lotor had seemingly covered all the obvious bases.  This one would take a bit of thought, and thought would be hard to come by until the adrenaline of being held captive and this ether-induced headache both wore off.

Much as he didn't want to give Lotor the satisfaction of literally anything, rest would be a welcome relief and would give him time to regroup, and maybe his cooperation would prompt Lotor to let his guard down enough for Keith to slip through the cracks later, once he'd gained something useful enough to take him down.

Keith took a slow, steadying breath, his foot paused on the landing.

"If I let you go, what will you do?"

"I would show you to your quarters, as promised."

"No shooting?"

"Not even a passing graze.  I will require that blade of yours, however."  The presumptuous bastard actually held a hand up over his shoulder expectantly.

The gesture was almost enough to make Keith dig the blade into the purple throat and draw it fast, but he stayed his hand.  It wasn't worth it — not yet.  Maybe when he escaped he could take the prince's head as a consolation prize.

"Okay."

Though every base impulse in him screamed not to, he removed the blade from the prince's throat, holding it toward his open palm.  He expected the prince to snatch it from him, as Keith would've done in his place, but Lotor took it from him gently, with care, as though it were something incredibly fragile.  He handed it to Acxa with the same delicacy as she came up the stairs to retrieve it, and when she sheathed it again at her hip, Keith noticed her hand rested upon it for a moment.

Keith released his hold on Lotor's hair, and the prince righted himself, combing through it with his fingers.  The look he gave Keith as he turned to face him was almost petulant.  "That _really_ hurt, you philistine."

Daunted by the mounting hopelessness of his situation, and also having no wish to see it escalate further, Keith felt too cowed to do anything more at the moment but to submit.  "Sorry."

" _Well_ ," the prince said, definitely petulant this time.  "As long as you're _sorry_."  Ezor laughed behind her hand.  Lotor looked at them over his shoulder.  "I shall return shortly," he said, and Acxa nodded.  Zethrid stepped forward.

"Should we bind him again, sir?"

There was a note of glee in her voice that made Keith's stomach turn.  A corner of Lotor's mouth twitched, but he resisted the smile.  "No," he said.  "I think our guest is quite done with his funny business for now.  He's reasonable enough to see when violence won't benefit him.  As I said… I'm not worried."

True to his word, his only form of restraint was to take Keith by the upper arm as he activated the control panel and guided him through the door.  His grip was gentle enough that it didn't hurt, but present enough for Keith to know if he tried to pull away, he would be stopped.  It didn't matter — he had no intention of pulling away anymore, not until he'd learned what Lotor wanted out of Voltron.

He felt tempted to ask, but knew it would get him nowhere; the prince had struck him from their first meeting in the orbit of planet Puig as the sort of man who liked to play with his food before he ate it.

The door, as it turned out, was the opening to an elevator.  Lotor pressed a button on the interior control panel and the doors whisked shut, the elevator lurching downward.  The panel was unmarked, so Keith had no idea what floor they'd been on, or where any of the other buttons would take him.  Had he managed to get in here earlier, he would've been at a loss.  He tried to count the floors as they zipped past in blurs of light visible through the ceiling, but they moved too quickly, and then stopped entirely as the elevator arrived at its destination.  Lotor guided him into the corridor without a word.

It was much easier to keep track of the layout here — the elevator opened into a wide corridor with a vaulted ceiling, and where it bordered on the outer hull, the wall was a window, offering a floor to ceiling view of space that stretched as far as the corridor allowed.  Lotor guided Keith down a narrower, darker hallway, where the doors were much closer together than the broad expanses that separated the ones in the main corridor.  Seven doors down, he stopped, activating a control panel.  At the hushed slide of the door opening, the interior lights came on automatically, revealing quarters a little bigger than his current room in the Castle of Lions.

Lotor released Keith's arm, allowing him to step into the room.  A pair of additional doorways on one bulkhead stood open, the ambient light from the bedroom casting a glow through them and revealing what seemed to be a decently sized bathroom and a walk-in closet.  The bathroom was a lateral move from his castleship quarters, but the closet was a step up, even if he had nothing to put in it, though he was surprised to notice a couple of spare bodysuits already hung from a rack within.  Even more surprising was that they appeared at a glance to be small enough to fit him.  Keith stepped into the closet to inspect them, causing the light in there to blink to life, and noticed a pair of slip-on boots resting on a low shelf.  They were his size, too.

He looked back at Lotor, lounging in the doorway and studying him affectionately, like watching an adopted cat surveying its new forever home.

Keith held up a sleeve of one of the bodysuits.  "Expecting company, were you?"

"Oh yes," Lotor said.  "I've gone to some length to foster a hospitable environment for you.  As I mentioned, I've been looking forward to this for some time."

"Good thing that's not creepy at all."

"I'm glad you appreciate the gesture," Lotor said with a smile.  Keith had forgotten his resolution to stop saying things sarcastically that could be taken sincerely, and kicked himself internally for it.  "I'd so hoped you would.  That armor must be so tiresome to wear for long, and I can't imagine it's very comfortable now."

"If you're hoping for a strip tease, you can move along."

Lotor blinked rapidly, scandalized.  "Goodness, no.  What kind of host do you take me for?"

"The kind who kidnaps people and calls it hospitality."

The prince's chest swelled as though he were about to retort, but he bit it back, deflating with a sigh.  "I deserved that," he said soberly.  "I truly am sorry for it.  I know you wouldn't choose to be here, if you had the option.  I only hope you can understand soon enough that it's for your own good."

"Funny how the people who think they know what's best for me turn out to be wrong a lot of the time."

"In that case, I hope to be in the minority."

Keith looked him up and down.  His posture seemed subdued and the remorse in his voice sounded genuine, but it could be an act.  "We'll see."

"That's all I can ask for, for the moment," Lotor conceded, righting himself.  "We can meet again in the morning and see if you're feeling more agreeable."

The notion of being more agreeable jogged Keith's memory that he needed to be cooperative in order to convince Lotor to let his guard down.  He looked away, nudging one of the boots with his foot.  "Whatever.  Your party.  I can tell you I'd be more agreeable if there was any aspirin in that bathroom."

The prince frowned.  "Unfortunately, I do not believe so, but I will have a regimen sent for you shortly.  Are you in pain?"

"Headache," Keith said, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

"I see.  I'm sorry about that."  He watched Keith inspect the stitching in the bodysuits, but Keith didn't reply, so Lotor cleared his throat softly.  "I'll leave you to your rest, then.  I hope you'll feel better in the morning."

"Mm, thanks."

"Goodnight, Keith."

Keith didn't reply, and after a moment, the door hissed shut, signaling the prince's departure.

Keith darted to it immediately, pressing an ear to the metal and waiting for the prince's footfalls to fade from earshot.

He had been lucky, in hindsight, that Ezor had prevented him from reaching the elevator, because now he still held one ace up his sleeve: As far as the prince and anyone else could know by appearances alone, Keith was human, and wouldn't be able to activate any control panels or other technology on this Galra ship.  He could sneak around, unnoticed and unsuspected.  He didn't want to leave just yet, not until he knew what Lotor was up to and what was so damn important about Voltron that he had planned this kidnapping to this degree of detail, but if it were at all possible, conveying a message to his friends illustrating the situation would be ideal.  He couldn't have them pulling a Big Damn Heroes rescue and breaking down the door prematurely, before he'd learned anything of value.  It was also possible a few of them would appreciate the update purely on the level of concerned friends.

Though the thought twisted his stomach, for he felt no desire to connect deeper with the Black Lion — it had never been his to claim, and now that Shiro had been recovered, he would have felt relieved to relinquish command of it back to him — he swallowed his aversion and reached out, for the first time, through that unspoken and indescribable mental passageway that linked his mind to the great beast.

It revealed itself to him easily, swiftly, as though it had been waiting for his call.  He could see the path of travel that would take him to the hangar where it stood, protected in its particle bubble but trapped from escape, and the great metal doors that lay just ahead of it.

"Gotcha," he said, and opened the door to his quarters.

Navigating the halls proved little challenge with the Black Lion's directions to guide him until he encountered a pair of automated sentries on patrol.  _Moment of truth_ , he thought, and held out his hand at the thigh of his armor.

The bayard materialized, warm in his palm, and his face broke into a grin.

The sentries, and a few other pairs he encountered, were easy enough to dispatch, and he moved silent as the stars through the halls until a few minutes later he found himself outside the enormous hangar doors he had seen in his mind's eye.

Breathing deeply, he reached out to the lion through the door.  Pushing aside the headache, he tried to use that mental pathway as a bridge to reach out further, to Shiro, but all he encountered was empty space and the lion's confusion.  The bond worked best while seated in the cockpit, though; perhaps he needed to get inside the lion in order to convey to it what he really wanted.

He kicked aside the decapitated head of a sentry he'd dismantled and pressed his hand to the hangar door control panel, but nothing happened.

A moment passed, and he left his hand in place, wondering if perhaps it required some time to activate, but it remained resolutely dark.

"What the hell?" he whispered, slapping his palm to the panel, then punching it with a closed fist, to no effect.  He peeled a glove off and touched his bare hand to the cold glass, but still, nothing happened.  From the other side, the lion's call to him reached out like a physical ache.  He had partially been afraid of this — that opening the door to anything more than a superficial bond would be to open a floodgate and plunge into the depths of true connection with a lion he didn't want — but at the moment, he was mostly upset that it had amplified his headache.

Closing one eye to the pain as if it would help, Keith raised his bayard to the control panel.  If he couldn't open it by blood, he would open it by force.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you, pretty-boy," a voice rang out behind him, and Keith nearly jumped out of his own skin, whirling to find the source.

Lotor leaned against a load-bearing arch a few meters away with his arms crossed over his middle, enveloped by darkness, almost concealed if not for the fuchsia glow of his greaves creating a halo on the ground beneath him.  He didn't seem surprised at all that Keith had escaped his room or found his lion; in fact, by the set of his shoulders as he leaned against the bulkhead, it seemed as though he'd been waiting for some time in anticipation of it.

"That panel can only be opened by certain personnel, and cannot be forced," he said, nodding toward it.  "Should it be destroyed, the door will not open, and seeing as I'm already a bit short-staffed on sentries at the moment thanks to your escapade just now, I would rather not invest the energy into diverting any of them off task to come down here and repair it, if you don't mind.  Seeing as I do believe I informed you that you would not be able to reach your lion, I think it would be best to consider this matter closed."

Keith stood frozen in shock, his heart thudding on his tongue.

"I am glad you came, though," he said conversationally, as if it were reasonable or even expected for Keith to have been anywhere other than where the prince had left him, presumably trapped.  "You needed to activate your bayard in order for me to claim it, and of course, as you're still my highly reluctant guest and I may be in considerable danger as your host if you remain armed, I'm going to need to relieve you of it."

He made a waving motion with his hand, a come-hither gesture, and numbly, Keith deweaponized the bayard.  He placed it on the floor and gave it a little kick, sending it skittering across the metal toward the prince, who lifted a foot to halt its momentum.  Lotor bent down to retrieve it and leaned back against the bulkhead, twisting it in hand as he spoke.

"Also, I nearly forgot to mention — as you are a guest, not a prisoner, you are of course free to wander as you like, but the sentries—" he indicated the mangled robotic remains of the ones that had guarded the hangar door— "will be monitoring you.  Should they show evidence of tampering or damage, or should we lose track of your location, my generals and I will be forced to find you ourselves, and you won't enjoy nearly as much liberty once we've had enough of that nonsense.  You might do well to realize the benefits being offered to you without crossing the line into ungrateful."

Keith's mouth had gone dry, and he was sure he must've looked every inch as terrified as he felt.  Lotor had been waiting for him to get here, something he could've only done if he could open a door only a Galra could open.  How could he have known Keith had Galra blood?  And come to think that much, there were many questions Keith had noticed, both asked and unasked, about Lotor's level of knowledge at play — how had he known Keith's name in the first place?  He could've guessed Keith used to pilot Red based on his armor, but how could he have known the Black Lion rejected its last paladin — and Shiro, specifically?  How did he know who Shiro was?  Maybe it had been from Shiro's fame in the arena, but then, how would he know he'd become the black paladin?

Lotor blinked at Keith sedately, as though he were putting on a mildly entertaining puppet show instead of having a mental breakdown.  He picked himself up from the bulkhead with a lazy stretch skyward, for all the world the cat who'd gotten the cream, and spared a dreamy parting of "Goodnight, Keith," as he strolled away down the corridor.

Keith stared after him, dumbstruck, until he took a turn and disappeared from sight and his bootsteps faded into silence.

The lion's call cried out to him in his mind, but as Keith turned and placed a hand on the hangar doors, it began to understand, and quieted.  He had, it seemed, hit the mother of dead ends.

Escape would take a great deal more effort, but despite the shaking beneath his skin, he wouldn't let it deter him.  There would be a way out.

There always was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ope, NSFW time. Happy birthday, Keith.

Keith hadn't considered taking a shower to be one of the benefits offered by captivity, but when he trudged back into his quarters, his feet guided him there on autopilot, and it was several long minutes standing under the hot spray with his throbbing forehead pressed to the tile before he blinked himself back to his senses.

He made a mental bullet list of the situation.

Bullet one: Lotor knew his name.  He knew all kinds of things about Voltron and its paladins that he shouldn't have had any way of knowing.

Bullet two: Lotor indicated that he had picked Keith on purpose — he'd been awaiting the fruition of this plan with great eagerness and would be _remiss_ to try again with a different paladin.  Keith was special to him.  The fondness he'd displayed indicated as much, too.  It wasn't exactly a barrier, but it was… disturbing.

Bullet three: Lotor essentially planned on keeping Keith hostage until Stockholm Syndrome set in.

Bullet four: Lotor wanted Voltron for something, but wasn't going to tell him what until Keith trusted him.

Bullet five: Keith couldn't get to his lion.  He couldn't use it to send a message to anyone on the castleship, and they couldn't use it to contact him.  He couldn't use it to escape, and he was sure now that any other ways he might've used to escape — like stealing a fighter — would be barred from him as well.  Lotor would not let him fight his way out, and would not be blackmailed or threatened into letting him go.

It was a sobering list.

The water was almost too hot for comfort, but Keith let it burn on.  The pain roused him, kept his mind from wandering.

For every problem, there had to be a solution.  The prince wasn't infallible.  Keith began to compile a list of points to counter each bullet on the list.

Counterpoint one: Lotor knowing things he couldn't have known meant he must have had an access point to it that Keith hadn't figured out yet.  All the information he'd revealed was fairly common knowledge among their allies — any planet they liberated heard the story of the Blade of Marmora, and of Keith's hidden Galra blood, and of Shiro, the lost paladin who had been miraculously returned to them after a long and inexplicable disappearance.  Showing off what he knew was probably a power play to get Keith rattled, but it also revealed his hand — if this was the extent of what he knew, it was fairly easy information to get.  Lotor could have tortured the information out of one of their ally planets, or perhaps had established some kind of covert grapevine spy network.  Maybe he had even convinced some of their allies to double-cross them.  Keith couldn't imagine any one of his friends in the castleship relaying secret missives to the crown prince of the Galra Empire, but it didn't have to come directly from them.  Whatever his source of information was, once Keith rooted it out, he could cut it off.

Counterpoint two: This was disturbing, but it was also possibly just a power play designed to shake Keith off his footing.  If it turned out to be genuine, it raised a number of questions — such as what it was that made Keith so special, and what information Lotor had gained that had made him conclude this about him — but by bringing down Lotor's access to that information, he could at least prevent future invasiveness like this.  It was also possible, if Lotor's affection was genuine, to use this against him by playing to it, like a schoolgirl pulling quiz answers out of a classmate with a known crush by pretending to reciprocate.  It might be skin-crawling and uncomfortable, but if he pulled up his big boy pants, it could be done.

Counterpoint three: If Lotor planned on inducing Stockholm Syndrome, then the easiest way for Keith to mitigate that would be to fake Stockholm Syndrome.  He said he wanted Keith to trust him, but in point of fact, _Keith_ was the one who had to earn _Lotor's_ trust.  He would have to be cowed and obedient and compliant, and if point two was to be believed, possibly flirtatious.  These were things he had never been especially gifted at, by training or impulse.  He would have to be vigilant with himself and never miss a beat in order to put on a convincing act long enough to deceive a canny man like Lotor.  It would be stressful and difficult, but he could do it.  He was sure of it.

Counterpoint four: If the prince didn't believe it was worth every ounce of his effort to confide in Keith, he wouldn't, but if he _did_ believe it… Lotor would share what he wanted out of Voltron as soon as he felt Stockholm Syndrome had been achieved.  Trick him, and he would spill his guts.  Problem solved.

Counterpoint five: Doors were not the only way into a room.  He had built explosives before out of water bottles and lithium batteries; he could do it again.  He might not need to, if Lotor's trust also extended so far as to send him on his way back to Voltron under the pretense of bringing them to him, but it was good sense to have a fallback.  Where flattery and acting failed, drain cleaner and tinfoil would suffice.

The list looked a little less daunting now.  He could do this; he could beat Lotor at his own game, cut off his resources, and take him down, all by faking kissing up a little.  All he had to do was play pretend, and wait.  He had never been very good at the waiting game, but the buildup would make the prince's downfall all the more satisfying.  The thing that worried him most was the fear his teammates must be feeling for his safety, and hoping he could weasel what he needed out of Lotor before they rallied together a rescue attack.  It was a strange thing, hoping his rescuers would take their time, but he was sure they would give it to him if he could tell them what he had decided to do.  As it stood, he had no way of doing that, so his mission would be a careful balance of racing one clock against another, blind.

He could hope they took their time, but the nauseating twisting in his stomach underscored that there was one person he _really_ didn't want to wait for.

The chloroform cloud still fogged his memory of how exactly he had been taken, so rather than trying to start with the last thing he knew and work backwards, he decided to begin with an event he knew for certain and retrace his steps forward from there.

It was not coincidence, with the thought of the one man he didn't want to wait for dancing in his brain and the steam and wetness from the shower influencing his judgment, that he chose the starting point he did.

 

———

 

Keith was always amazed, every time, by how _deep_ Shiro's cock could reach inside him, like scratching an itch he could never touch by himself.  That first hard thrust that took him to the hilt always pushed the breath right out of him, and many times, he would cum from that stroke alone.

Shiro leaned over him from behind, watching him whine and pant his climax into the sheets, letting him ride it out.  Sometimes it frustrated him, how Shiro would pause like that when all he wanted was _more_ , but he knew, had been told, that Shiro got off on watching Keith lose himself to pleasure.

"Should I stop, baby?"

He always asked, even though he had long since learned what the answer would be.  This was one thing that never frustrated him — Shiro's tight adherence to permission and boundaries.  The softness in Shiro's voice as he asked Keith's approval, with every "May I?" and "Do you want it?", could sometimes make him hotter than the act itself.

Keith craned his neck to aim a dangerous smile over his shoulder at Shiro as best he could.  "Don't you dare."

Shiro complied, ramming into him hard and fast, pushing dry moans from his throat.  Keith closed his eyes, letting the slide of Shiro's cock and the stretch of his hole drown out all his other senses.  Shiro held him by the waist and one shoulder, but he still pounded into Keith forcefully enough to shift him forward on the mattress with every thrust.  Keith's hands balled into loose fists in the sheets.

"Shiro," he moaned.  "Fuck me hard."

"I thought I was," Shiro said, not missing a beat, though he was even more breathless than Keith.

"Harder."

He missed a beat now.  "I don't want to hurt you."

Keith opened his eyes, glanced back at him.  "I'm not made of glass."

A shift of Shiro's mechanical hand from Keith's shoulder to his hip, and Keith was tugged back to the edge of the bed, pulling his body back on Shiro's dick and taking him that extra fraction of an inch that drove him wild, lighting up every nerve in bright points, like they were the only nerves in his whole body that mattered.

"God," he whined, " _yes_ Shiro, fuck, _fuck_."

" _Keith_ ," Shiro panted, coming undone watching Keith come undone.  Keith knew the mess he must look, the sweat rolling up his arched back and his fisted knuckles turning white, his hair snarling into a tangled nest from being dragged across the sheets, the breathless cries gasping from his open mouth with every stab of Shiro's cock deep into his guts.

"Shiro," he choked out, "Shiro—"

"I know," Shiro said, "me too," and Keith knew, he could feel the urgency bleeding into Shiro's rhythm, making him frantic.  "I wanna—"

"Do it," Keith said, before he could ask permission, "cum in my ass, fill me up," and at those words, with a stuttering moan, Shiro came deep inside him in a hot gush that pushed Keith over the edge.  He felt himself clench up, his toes curling, and let out a high keening sound into the mattress as he rocked back onto Shiro, losing himself to the heat and the spill, silently begging for more of it.

Too soon, far too soon, Shiro was spent, and Keith whined, still pulsing his own release into the sheets.  Shiro waited for him to finish, thumbs slowly rubbing circles into his hips, before he pulled out, one last slide lubricated with his own cum that always brought Keith's cock back to attention.  He hungered, craved _so badly_ , for Shiro to fuck his own cum into him, but Shiro couldn't go more than once like Keith could.  Sometimes he could manage a few strokes, but overstimulation quickly turned to discomfort too sour to bear, and he would have to stop.  Keith was determined to build up his stamina, to shorten the gaps between rounds until there wasn't any, but Shiro always gave a nervous laugh and assured him it wasn't going to work.  Keith wasn't deterred; it may have been an imposing goal, but they had their whole lives to accomplish it.

Keith crawled onto the bed and flopped onto his side, rolling on his back.  Shiro tugged the expended sheet from under him and wadded it up, tossing it into a far corner of the floor, where the laundry chute opened and swallowed it.  The remaining sheet Keith still lay on would join it soon enough, once all of Shiro's cum had leaked out of him.  It was another sensation he loved — the dribble, the viscous mess, the sticky reminder.  Sometimes he would close his eyes and bask in it, jerking himself off in slow, languid strokes, but Shiro always felt strangely left out for being unable to join him, so Keith resisted the urge unless Shiro had fallen asleep.  What he really longed for was to be able to touch Shiro while it happened, but Shiro's overstimulation typically didn't wear off until long after the last of the cum had escaped.

Shiro settled in beside him, wrapping one arm around Keith and pulling the light coverlet over their chests with the other.  His shoulder was so thick Keith could use it as a pillow, so different from their days at the Garrison, before either of them had confessed to the other and they had both pretended that their cuddling was totally non-romantic, purely for warmth.  Shiro had been skinnier then — not less fit, exactly, but leaner.  A year in the arena had bulked his muscle to a point that would've ripped his Garrison service dress suit.  Sometimes Keith's heart ached at the thought of what Shiro had been forced through, but right then, he just snuggled into Shiro's thick shoulder and sighed contentedly.

"Something about the way you…" Shiro started to say, trailing off strangely, and Keith looked up at him.  He had an almost lost glaze in his eye.

Keith tweaked one of his nipples.  It worked; Shiro slapped a hand over his, fixing him with a look that was slightly annoyed and definitely present.

"You okay?" Keith asked.  It was normal for Shiro to space out sometimes, but not so much for him to do it unprompted.  There was nearly always a situational trigger that pulled him out of the here-and-now and threw him back to someplace Keith couldn't follow.

"Yeah," Shiro said.  "Sorry.  I just… I got that weird feeling again."

Keith's stomach turned over.  "Like you're being watched?"

"Yeah.  I can't explain it, I know it's just us in here.  It's silly, but I… I can't shake it sometimes."

"It's okay," Keith said, even though it wasn't.  Shiro had been unflappable before Kerberos, had responded to even the most brutal training with laughter and banter, and he tried to keep up the same front now, but every so often Keith could see glimpses through the cracks of the damage that had been caused and how deep it ran.  He was supposed to be the golden boy, the model citizen, the everyman's hero, and for something to have broken him like that was unforgivable.

He wasn't sure what upset him more — that Shiro had been damaged in the first place, or that he didn't know how to fix it.

"You were saying something about me," Keith prompted, his voice impish as he continued to roll Shiro's nipple between thumb and finger.

Shiro took his hand gently and moved it away.  "Well, I feel kind of bad bringing it up because I know you can't help it, but… when you climax, you squeeze up around me, and it's really tight," he said.  "Too tight to pull out.  It… it almost _hurts_."

"Maybe you're just too big," Keith teased.

Shiro's face fell into concern in the space of a blink.  "You think I'm too big?"

"As far as I'm concerned?" he said, extracting his hand from Shiro's to stroke a long line down to his thigh.  "No such thing."

"You're adorable," Shiro said through a smile, "but you can't jerk me off yet."

Keith pouted, annoyed at having been caught.  "But it's coming out _now_ —"

"Not yet, Keith, it's too soon."

"Aw man," Keith muttered, his exasperation mostly false, and brought his hand back up to Shiro's chest, feeling the vibration of his laughter as the wet slide of his cum trickled down Keith's leg to soak into the sheets.  He nuzzled his forehead into Shiro's jaw.  "I love you."

"I love you too, baby," Shiro murmured, tightening his hold around Keith's shoulders.

 

———

 

Keith blew his load all over the shower wall, palm a little too tight around his shaft and two fingers up his ass.  If he wiggled them just right, he could feel the slight viscid residue of the last of Shiro's cum where it had gotten lodged between the ridges just under his prostate.  He knew the ridges were unusual, because Shiro didn't have them, but flicking his fingertips over them to bring himself back to the edge, he didn't particularly give a damn who had them and who didn't.

He allowed himself one more pulse of orgasm, one more gooey white rope splattering on top of the rest and slowly oozing down the tile, before he eased himself off, slowing his strokes and shallowing his touches into cooldown.  If he didn't deliberately choose a stopping point, he could go on all night, and while it might help in the relaxation department, it wouldn't be very conducive to resting.

 _God_ , he missed his boyfriend — missed his thick cock and his sheltering embrace and his warm, slow rolling laugh.  How long would it be until he saw him again?  Keith didn't have a number, but whatever it was, he knew it was too long.

He rinsed his fingers under the spray until the slime wore off.

He didn't want to flirt with Lotor.  He didn't want to flirt with anyone but Shiro, and often Shiro's enthusiastic reaction psyched him out from further flirting with _him_ , so most of the time he didn't really want to flirt with anyone at all.  But in order to gain Lotor's confidence and get out of here, he would have to do a few things he didn't want to.  He might even have to go further than flirting, if it was the only thing that would work.  The thought shriveled his dick faster than the cooling water.  Shiro would understand, he was sure, wouldn't consider it willful cheating… but it sure felt like it, even trapped in the safe confines of his thoughts.  It was a thought he would much sooner banish than prepare for.

He turned off the water and stood there, dripping, letting the pounding of his headache fill the silence between his ears.

 

———

 

The blare of the castleship emergency alarm had come far too soon, pulling Keith out of the fringes of sleep and jerking Shiro wide awake with a gasp.  Keith petted his chest for a moment until he calmed down enough to ruffle Keith's hair.  Then he leapt out of bed and, barely pausing long enough to toss on his shirt and pants, dashed from the room.

They kept their clothes in their own quarters.  They kept nearly everything in their own quarters because Shiro didn't want anyone to spot them coming out of the same room and figure out what they were doing.  He said it was because he would hate for them to think he was playing favorites, an answer so innocent it could only have come from Shiro.

It made things inconvenient when it came to imminent danger, though, because the extra steps back to their own spaces added time they couldn't afford to lose.  Allura's voice over the comms mingled with the alarm — "Paladins, a Galra fleet is attacking the ship!  Get to the lions, NOW!"

Shit.  Keith couldn't get out of his room fast enough, tumbling through the door while still pulling on his gauntlets.

The bridge was a tornado of activity, paladins scrambling to reach the hatches for the bay to their respective lions, struggling to be fully dressed before departing — Pidge hopped toward the Green Lion hatch on one foot, the other wedged halfway into a boot, and Hunk was still squeezing into his helmet.

"Where did they even come from?" he cried.

"They appear to have been using that nearby gas giant's dense gravitational field as a shield to conceal the battleship's location from scanners," Coran explained.

Keith ambled toward the Black Lion's drop hatch, eyes following the activity on the positioning monitor.  He nearly collided with Lance on his race to Red's hatch, but Lance was so hurried he barely spared a "Watch it!" before he was gone from sight.  Keith paid him no mind, scanning the layout of fighters and cruiser around the planet.  _Concealed from scanners?_   Why would an entire fleet have been just hanging out behind a gas giant?  Unless…

"They knew we were here," Keith said, but no one seemed to hear him — Hunk disappeared down his hatch with a groan, and Pidge was already gone.  Allura tucked a stray wisp of white into the back of her helmet as she sprinted for the Blue Lion hatch, shouting instructions to Coran over her shoulder.

"Keep the particle barrier up as long as possible, even if it means deflecting all defenses to the forward—"

"I know, Princess," Coran assured her, his posture confident at the console despite the thread of nerve in his voice.  "You go.  Voltron needs you.  Shiro and I can defend the castle."

"Shiro," Keith said, one step away from the drop hatch to the Black Lion's bay.  He paused, staring at the back of Shiro's head, stopped short.

Shiro wasn't wearing his paladin armor.  There was no point; the Black Lion wouldn't accept him, so he'd rather be comfortable.  It made sense, it was expected, but it was still a shock, so awful, so _wrong_.  It shouldn't be Keith out there, it should be _him_ , why wasn't it him?

He turned and caught Keith staring.

"Shiro, I think this is a mistake," he said in a rush.  "They were hiding from our sensors because they knew we were coming, this is a trap, we should get out of here."

"We don't know that, Keith."

"But we shouldn't risk—"

"We're too surrounded to wormhole out just yet," Coran cut across them both.  "Not until we've thinned their forces a little can we hope to outrun all of them far enough to escape."

"See?" Shiro said, and he gave a little smile, reaching out and placing a hand on Keith's shoulder.  "Go," he said softly.  "I'll be here."

He wouldn't say those other three words, the ones he'd said so easily in Keith's bedroom — not with Coran right next to him, nor with the others listening in over the comms.  Keith wished he would.  He knew it wasn't shame that stopped him, but sometimes, especially in moments like these, any other excuse just didn't feel good enough.  Anybody else's delicate little feelings about things like _favorites_ fell a hilariously flat second priority to Keith's own comfort.

He wouldn't betray Shiro's trust and blurt the words out himself, though, even though he wanted to.  "I'll be right back," he said instead.  "Then we'll get out."

Shiro patted his shoulder and let go, giving Keith an unspoken order to step back and let the drop hatch take him.  Keith obeyed, feeling as though he were pulling free of his own limbs and leaving them behind.  As he fell out of sight, Shiro gave him a wink.

It made him feel sick sitting at the cockpit of the Black Lion, as though he were being publicly granted an award for an exam he'd cheated on.  It wasn't that he wanted Red back; he had been grateful for Red's attachment and devotion to him, but he'd never understood it, and felt no great sense of loss at Red having figured out his apathy and moved on from him.  He could even appreciate Lance having gained it — if anyone was cocky and impulsive and temperamental in the group, it was bound to be the Leo — and even if he felt it should've taken more than a begrudging acceptance of his unavoidable situation in order to earn Red's trust, that wasn't Keith's call to make, and he ultimately didn't particularly care one way or the other.  What made him feel sick was that _this_ lion, this one in particular, was Shiro's.  The idea of supplanting or replacing Shiro in any capacity, especially right in front of his face, was gut-twisting, but more than that, Shiro had so little anymore that was _his_ , and Keith had every desire to see him keep everything he won, large or small, whatever the cost.  Taking anything from him, especially something so meaningful and important, felt like nothing short of highway robbery.

He didn't have time to fight it now, though.  He wasn't sure he ever would.

He kept his connection as shallow and minimal as possible, shaving it down to brusque requests.  _Bank left.  Roll right.  Jaw blade.  Tail laser.  Fighter on Hunk's 6._   If the lion wanted more from him, he blocked it out.

A new blip appeared on the Black Lion's sensors, and a familiar whirring sound pulsed through the hull as a fighter whirled around it in a nimble pirouette.  It passed in front of the visual monitors just long enough for Keith to absorb the sight of it — the trident shape of the body, the orange markings on the tips of the agile wings, the cockpit-mounted cannons — and then zipped off behind the lion.  Following Keith's thoughts, the lion turned its head to follow the fighter's path toward the gas giant, watching it soar toward the planet's rings.  It did a little twist in place, as if begging for him to follow.

Keith knew who the pilot was, and in an instant, it was all that occupied his thought, his quarrel with the lion momentarily forgotten.

His stomach did a strange fluttery thing, an undefinable blend of hatred, curiosity, and dissonant serenity.  They'd only _just_ taken out Zarkon, bane of the entire concept of freedom, and he turned out to have merely been a harbinger for this prick swooping in from the asshole of nowhere.  Why hadn't literally _anyone_ known about this contingency heir until now?  But it didn't matter.  If his father could die, so could he.  And here he was, all alone, and his fighter was such a tiny thing, really.  Such a little thing.  And the Black Lion was so powerful.

Fate had thrown him a bone.

"Lotor."

Lance's voice was shrill over the comm.  "What?  Lotor?!  Where?"

"Over here," Keith said, his own voice disjointedly calm.  "I'm going after him."

"What!" Lance screeched again, as Allura cried, "No, Keith!  Stay here!", but Keith had already powered after the little fighter.  It bobbed in its course, as though bouncing in its seat, then did a wide twirling loop and zoomed off into the rings.

Almost the very moment he entered the debris, the Black Lion's navigational display cut short.  The dense gravitational field was interfering with the lion's proximity sensors.  No matter.  He could navigate visually.  He still hadn't fully adjusted to the change in pace to the Black Lion, its bulk and its weight so much greater than Red making it far less maneuverable, but he hadn't been the Garrison's top pilot for no reason.  Though he remained closed off to mutual connection, he had learned to pick up on the lion's limits, and was able to adhere to them without much error.  Between that small margin, and Keith's abundant skill, navigating through ring debris was easy enough by the naked eye alone.

"Keith!"  Shiro's voice was sharp in his alarm.  "We're losing you in the debris field, the planet's gravitational field is too strong!"

"I can see what I'm doing," Keith said.  Lotor's nav systems were clearly not suffering as Keith's were, his fighter dipping and weaving around the debris, carving a zig-zagging path, but it looked larger now on his visual monitor.  Keith was gaining on him.

"Keith, get out of there, now!  That's an order!"

The back of Keith's neck prickled.  It rankled him sometimes how Shiro could flip the switch so easily from boyfriend and equals, to commanding officer, equally earnest in both.  It made no sense; they didn't coincide.  Only one of them could be the act — equals, or not.  It was an infuriating puzzle and Keith was not in the mood for it anymore.  He knew what he was doing, he was capable of making his own calls, and whether any of them liked it or not, the Black Lion had chosen him, not Shiro.

"No.  I've got him, I'm taking him down."

"Keith!"  The sensor disturbance had started to affect the comms; Shiro's voice crackled with static interference.  "This is no time for heroics, knock it off!"

"Get off my ass, Shiro, I can do this!"

Keith ducked to avoid a larger chunk of rock, and with that, Lotor's fighter disappeared.

"Fuck!"

"Yeah," Lance's voice drawled, choppy through the static but just clear enough that Keith could hear him say, "sounds like you've got a real good handle on things."

"Would you shut up?"  Keith smacked at the consoles as if it would do anything, and in the split second his eyes were off the visual monitor, Lotor's fighter swooped in from below, knocking into the lion and kicking it off course.  Keith let out a pained grunt as he was jostled roughly in his seat, but Lotor's fighter was still in sight and had taken an abruptly direct path through the debris, arcing around the planet.  Playtime was over, it seemed.  Now righteously pissed, his calm gone, Keith punched up the thrusters and tore off after him.  Lotor was fast, but Keith's craft was heavier, and with enough acceleration, he could be faster.  He could smell something sickeningly sweet, and cursed Lotor in his head.  He must've broken the antifreeze pipelines.  Sure enough, a red warning alert popped up on one of the displays, an alarm blaring like a car horn.  The markings were in Altean and Keith couldn't read it, but he didn't need to see what it said to know the Black Lion would be in trouble fast if he couldn't catch Lotor right now.

Fortunately, he was still gaining.  All he had to—

A dazzling, piercing purple light flooded the visual monitors, blinding Keith and making him gasp.  He got a thick lungful of the noxious sweet odor and coughed on reflex, but to cough was to drag in another deep breath, and when his eyes refocused on the nav display — when had that come back on? — it was to see everything in double.  Shiro was yelling, Coran was yelling, why was everybody yelling?  The warning alert still screeched, annoying, annoying, stop it… just let him sleep…

 

———

 

Galra didn't use towels, but there was a sort of upside-down archway to walk through upon exiting the shower that dried him off completely in a matter of seconds, which Keith mentally equated to an enormous, full-body Dyson airblade.  He begrudgingly admitted it was super awesome.

He had hoped to rummage around the bathroom storage compartments for explosive components, but had been very annoyed to find there were no storage compartments to speak of.

There were plenty of storage compartments in the closet, from shelves to racks and even a little Lazy Susan for shoes, but all of them were empty, save the uniforms and single pair of boots he had noticed earlier.  On closer inspection, they weren't all uniforms; a few were a strong spandex with built-in armored padding for combat, and a couple others were of a softer organic fabric for casual use.  He also managed to find a drawer filled with meticulously folded underwear.  He didn't want to think about how Lotor knew what size he wore in _that_.

They were very comfortable, though.

The bedroom was equally devoid, boasting nothing but a small bedside shelf, jutting straight out from the wall with no storage beneath.  The bed itself was built like a captain's bed, and like on the castleship, there were shelves above it and space beneath the mattress for storage, but they were empty.  The mattress was no wider than his bunk on the castleship, but it was longer, built for creatures at least half again his height.  He wondered whether the Galra must not toss and turn a lot in their sleep.

With a little bit of playing around, Keith figured out the commands for the control panel, and turned down the main lights so only a soft purplish glow ringed the ceiling before he padded barefoot toward the bed.

On the bedside shelf was a metal tray with a steel tumbler of water, an open snuffbox with small blue gel capsules, and a ticker, displaying a digital note written by hand with a stylus.  Keith paused for a moment at the sight of the blue pills.  It wasn't that they were unwelcome — the headache, which he now knew was from ether and not an antifreeze leak, still pounded in his eye sockets — it was that he hadn't expected Lotor to actually follow through in providing them.  He took them in hand, rolling them in his palm as he surveyed the other items on the table.  The tumbler would work well as an incendiary container, if he could find reagents to put in it.  Water, he could get aplenty from the tap, but would a ten thousand year nomadic empire still bother with archaic things like drain cleaner and tinfoil?  He already knew from watching Pidge tear apart one of the Altean tickers and reassemble it more efficiently that there weren't any metals in there he was familiar with, and they wouldn't react violently enough with water, seeing how often Hunk had complained of dropping his own ticker in the toilet.  He would have to do some experimenting of his own to find things that when combined would make the proverbial earth-shattering kaboom.

He settled into bed, kicking his feet out over the covers, and took the ticker in hand.  It was larger than its Altean counterpart, and like all things Galra, it was purple.

_The acetylsalicylic acid supplement you requested. Please page the bridge if you require more before morning.  Hoping you feel better.  —L._

Keith blinked at it for a moment, trying to figure out why he felt something about this, apart from the concern and sympathy, was somehow off.

It wasn't until he exited out of it and onto the ticker's home screen, its widgets a jumble of angular script, that it clicked.

The note was written in English.

**Author's Note:**

> betas: [AnkoTweets](https://twitter.com/ankotweets), [jenforthewin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenforthewin)
> 
> my twitter: [tenhinas](https://twitter.com/tenhinas)


End file.
